In the current dynamic business management landscape, firms must monitor and occasionally reassess their competitive strategies to support long-term objectives. The strategic control process is a critical framework that can help firms measure, evaluate, and control their strategies in the field. This process helps in ascertaining that strategic direction is consistent with market requirements, organisational performance and stakeholders’ demands.
A strategic control process is the most essential of the strategic management course for professionals who engage in the resolution of complex matters. This article provides a literature review for the theoretical perspective of the concept of the strategic control process, its constituent sub-processes, and its importance in present day organisations.
What is the Strategic Control Process?
Strategic control can be defined as ensuring that an organisation’s strategies are on track and need to be modified or not. Strategic controls, therefore, differ from operational controls, mainly since they operate at a strategic level, while the latter is at the operating level, mainly aiming at the short-term and practical activities of the organisation.
This is an interactive process where there is always feedback, and further changes are made one or more than one time. Its main goal is to guarantee the strategic plan retains the intended and correct objectives for the business.
Importance of the Strategic Control Process
The strategic control process plays a pivotal role in helping organisations:
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Adapt to Changes: Act quickly regarding any external or internal environment change that impacts the achievement of strategic objectives.
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Enhance Efficiency: Concentrating on activities that create value for the organisation’s goals.
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Measure Performance: Conduct regular checks on how objectives set have been achieved through evaluation.
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Mitigate Risks: Minimise possible risks as early as possible and make corrections where necessary.
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Ensure Alignment: Ensure that the strategies reflect the organisation’s vision, mission and values.
Components of the Strategic Control Process
The strategic control process can be broken down into four key components, each playing a vital role in ensuring strategic success:
1. Setting Strategic Goals
The process starts with identifying Specific, Measurable, Achievable and Relevant strategic goals. These goals define acceptable performance and measure the degree of accomplishment toward goals. Key considerations when setting goals include:
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Another reason is the misfit with organisational vision and mission.
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Market covering and competitive environment analysis.
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They have to be clear regarding timelines, measurements, and expected results.
2. Developing Control Mechanisms
Control mechanisms are tools and methods used to monitor and evaluate performance. These mechanisms can be classified into four types:
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Premise Control: Consists of steps to confirm the strategic plan’s assumptions.
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Implementation Control: Supervises compliance with the strategic plan to consider objectives.
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Strategic Surveillance: Inclusive scanning of internal and external factors that may influence strategy.
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Special Alert Control: The ability to respond quickly to an event or crisis when it appears.
3. Measuring Performance
After establishing the control mechanisms, organisations need always to evaluate their performance. This involves:
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Measuring KPIs of input, process, output and outcomes.
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For the results to make sense, they must be used to see whether the organisation is on the right path.
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Benchmarking is used to evaluate performance against some standard.
4. Taking Corrective Action
In the case of gaps and variances between organisational performance and strategic plans, adjustments are needed. This can include:
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Introducing changes in the changed conditions of the business environment.
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Optimising resource distribution for poor-performing activities.
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Downward integration of objectives to more realistic results.
Steps in the Strategic Control Process
The strategic control process involves the following systematic steps:
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Establishing Standards and Objectives:
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Establish performance benchmarks and goals.
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In this regard, it will be important to establish clear, workable measures that will be used to assess progress.
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Monitoring and Collecting Data:
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They may include balanced scorecards, dashboards or even business analytics.
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Track financial performance or material and non-material values (sales, profits, satisfaction).
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Evaluating Progress:
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Actual results should be compared with the expected results.
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Data that indicate opportunities for improvement or areas that are divergent from the plan must be recognised.
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Implementing Changes:
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Define how to act in a situation regarding certain problems.
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It is crucial to ensure all the stakeholders appreciate the changes ailing the organisation to receive their endorsement.
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Feedback and Continuous Improvement:
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Optimisation of strategies should occur with the help of feedback loops.
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Encourage professional development and organisational learning performance.
Types of Strategic Control
Understanding the various types of strategic control is important for effective strategy implementation. They include:
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Premise Control:
Observe changes in the assumptions that have been made about the strategy.
It can assist in clarifying whether assumptions relating to market trends or competitor and resource behaviour are still valid.
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Implementation Control:
Outlines the organisation’s commitments to implementing a strategy.
Keeps every step in line and consistent with the general plan and goals set.
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Strategic Surveillance:
It implies constant surveillance of the organisation’s operating environment.
Accompanying the evaluation involves identifying factors that may emerge and affect the strategy.
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Special Alert Control:
Initiated depending on extraordinary occurrences that might destabilise business operations, such as a slowdown in the economy or a change of government.
Role of Strategic Control in a Strategic Management Course
Strategic management is a course that prepares students and working professionals to face difficult business situations. Understanding the strategic control process is a fundamental component of these programs, enabling learners to:
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Promote successful monitoring of the organisation’s strategies.
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Check the validity and effectiveness of the goal following the changes in the internal and external environment.
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Collect tangible measures that will aid in enhancing the application of strategy.
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Develop appropriate values in the leadership, execution and defence of strategies.
The strategic control process empowers participants towards organisational success within competitive market environments within organisational sustainability.
Challenges in Implementing the Strategic Control Process
Despite its benefits, organisations may face challenges when implementing the strategic control process, such as:
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Resistance to Change: Employees and stakeholders may be reluctant to adapt to new strategies.
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Data Overload: Enduring content generates one of the problems of information overload, which hampers insights and demands attention.
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Inadequate Resources: The process’s challenges may include inadequate finances, technologies, or personnel.
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Uncertainty: Such conditions imply that it could be difficult to forecast outcomes in markedly dynamic settings.
Solving these issues is possible only with active actions, consistent communication, and constant work on enhancing processes.
Conclusion
Strategic control is considered an effective tool for organisations to achieve strategic management objectives in the future. In this way, the organisations can continuously control, assess and modify the processes and achieve a competitive advantage.
The strategic control process, therefore, comes as an essential agenda for anyone aspiring to be strategically positioned in a strategic management course since it provides a nodding ground for leadership and decision-making. They clarify its parts, stages, and kinds so that employees are ready to manage contemporary business challenges.
Regardless of how long you have been operating in the line as a strategist, the principles of the strategic control process can be particularly essential to get insights that maximise the chances of success in an organisation.